Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #289

Background

Four years earlier in Amazing Spider-Man #238, the Hobgoblin was
introduced, and like the original Green Goblin his identity remained a mystery
for some time. Until now... (or at least until the Spider-Man: Hobgoblin
Lives mini-series after yet another ten years. But for all intents and
purposes, this was supposed to be the conclusion.)

In that issue the Daily Bugle (or at least its sister publication Now magazine)
sent Ned Leeds and Peter Parker on an assignment to Berlin to investigate the
return of Charlmagne - a "mysterious freelance operative from the Cold War
days".

Aside from the usual guilt that Peter trudges around with him, there's two
things in particular that he feels responsible for from this issue:

Thing Number One: The Death of Charlie.

Charlie (short for Charlmagne) was an ex-KGB (and ex-whoever else hired her)
operative who had been marked for termination. She basically wanted to beat
them to it, and had gone pretty much all over the world offing her old KGB
associates. Everyone in the journalistic community had naturally assumed that
she was a he. In fact, she was an old girlfriend of Wolverine, hence his
involvement. At the end of the issue, once she'd killed off everyone she's
needed to, she knew it was only a matter of time before she was caught and
tortured to death. Wolverine wanted to spare her that fate, and was all set to
kill her himself when Spidey shows up to stop him. During their fight, Charlie
taps Spidey on the shoulder. Thinking it's Wolverine he lands a fatal punch in
her face. The result? Lots and lots of guilt.

Thing Number Two: The Death of Ned Leeds.

In Berlin, Wolverine passes Peter Parker on the street and knows from his scent
straightaway that he is Spider-Man. He shows up at Peter's hotel room while
Ned's out, and the two go out together leaping across the rooftops. Wolverine
tries to talk Peter into going back home with Ned, as they are in way over
their heads. Peter then returns to his hotel room to find that Ned Leeds has
been murdered, with his throat slit. The result? Lots more guilt.

Many readers had been guessing for months that Ned Leeds was the Hobgoblin.
Check out any letters page in Amazing Spider-Man since 1985 and you'll
see that most readers had the Hobgoblin pegged as Ned. But he's dead. So now
that the major suspect in the Hobgoblin mystery is out of the running, who
could the man behind the mask possibly be...?

The main story is told in Amazing Spider-Man #289, but two months later
Web of Spider-Man #29 came out, which was set around the events of the
ASM issue. The ASM story makes perfect sense on its own, but just like the
Director's Cut of Aliens and Bladerunner, it's far more enjoyable with the
extra footage.

ASM Page 1: Set before Spider-Man versus Wolverine, Jason
Macendale (aka Jack O'Lantern) is sitting with The Foreigner in his office, and
expresses his desire for him to have someone terminated on his behalf.

ASM Page 2: Set during Spider-Man versus Wolverine. The two gents
are sat together again, when the Foreigner receives a call that the termination
has taken place right on schedule. The fee is one million dollars, to which
Macendale understandably reacts: "Are you nuts? I don't have that kind of
money!" The Foreigner calmly replies: "Of course you do. In Switzerland,
Account #055673. I've already had it withdrawn." The identity of their victim
is then revealed - it was none other than the Hobgoblin.

ASM Pages 3-6: JFK International Airport. Peter, Robbie, Betty, Jonah
and Marla watch as Ned Leeds' body is brought out from a plane in a large box.
Peter is really beating himself up over Ned's death, and Betty is beginning to
act a tad strange. As her husband's body is taken away, she cries out "Marla,
stop them! They're taking Ned away! He'll be alone!" So poor Betty's not in the
sanest of moods right now.

I had a bit of a problem with Betty being portrayed in this way. I don't
accept that Ned's death would've pushed her over the edge in this way. She's
lost so much over the years - from her brother being gunned down right in front
of her eyes, to being shot at by Sin-Eater - and she's always pulled through
it. It's difficult to believe that the death of her husband, who she was
cheating on anyway, should be the thing to send her over the edge.

But while she's being comforted by the others, Peter sees the Hobgoblin flying
past on his glider. So hang on... if the Hobgoblin's dead - who's this guy?

ASM Pages 7-9: Kingpin's HQ. The Foreigner's playing chess with the
Kingpin while they discuss the Hobgoblin's termination. The Kingpin shows
offense that the Foreigner would have him killed without consulting him first.
(Consulting the Kingpin that is, not the Hobgoblin. Consulting someone before
you kill them would be a bit pointless really. Well, I suppose you could out of
common courtesy, but you wouldn't end up killing many people. Anyway, we
digress...) Fisk is angered by this "lack of respect", and after the Foreigner
leaves, the Kingpin tells his secretary to put the word out that he wants
Spider-Man to visit. For reasons to be revealed later, he wants to hand him the
file on the Hobgoblin which includes (drum-roll, please) his identity.

WEB Page 1: Ned's funeral. All the mourners are... er... mourning.

ASM Page 10 (panels 1-5): Still Ned's funeral. Betty's trying to listen
for any sound of movement from the coffin.

There is a very careless inconsistency between these two issues in the funeral
scene. In WEB and ASM, Jonah's swapped places with Marla, and
Peter's swapped places with Betty. Why didn't the WEB artist just take
greater care? I suppose you could get around it by inserting a scene in which
Peter says to Betty: "Hey, Betts, why not swap places with me, huh? Ned's
starting to smell", and JJ says to Marla "Harrumph, dammit move Marla, I can't
see a thing - there could be a story here!" But then again, maybe the artist
just messed up.

WEB Page 2: Richard Fisk (aka The Rose, the Kingpin's son) has been
standing at a distance throughout the service. As the funeral party begins to
break up, he approaches the grave with a rose. Peter leaves with Betty in her
car.

ASM Page 10 (panel 6): Jonah is rather disturbed by Betty's behavior as
she drives off with Peter.

WEB Pages 3-5: Joy Mercado sees Fisk Jr at Ned's grave and tries to find
out why as Lance Bannon snaps some pictures. (Another inconsistency between
WEB and ASM - Lance Bannon is seen standing with the mourners in
ASM, but in the WEB funeral, he's disappeared, presumably because
they needed him to show up with Joy in this scene. If that was the case, it
would've been better to show Lance at the funeral - but at the first sniff of
a story he doesn't hesitate to hook up with Joy to pursue Fisk Jr. This would
have made for better continuity and a good character insight into Bannon and
Mercado.)

Richard runs off to the road where Alfredo and Dina meet him in a
Porsche. The three of them then drive off together. Dina wants to know why
Richard's so cut up about Ned's death. He figures he may as well tell her: "We
were partners, Dina... You see, Ned Leeds was... The Hobgoblin!!"

ASM Pages 11-14: Peter's with Betty at her apartment. She sends Peter on
his way, reassuring him not to worry as her mother would be coming over soon.
Peter makes his exit, after which he remembers that Betty's mom's dead.
Concerned about her sanity levels, he uses a call-box to phone Mary Jane to ask
her to come over and be with Betty. Unseen by Peter, Flash Thompson is hiding
out only a few feet away. (He was framed for being the Hobgoblin in ASM #276
and has been on the run since ASM #281.) He can't cope with being on the
run anymore, so he decides to give
himself up. He approaches a cop-car, but the cops drive off halfway through his
confession. This leaves Flash feeling even more worthless: "I can't even get
myself arrested."

WEB Page 6: Peter gets off the phone with Mary Jane and broods about all
the recent disasters in his life. He decides he needs to talk things over with
Felicia Hardy (aka The Black Cat) who already knows his secret ID and is
staying at his place for the time being.

WEB Pages 7-8: Kingsley Limited. Kris Keating and Roderick Kingsley are
panicking about what to do now. If Hobgoblin's identity's been found out - how
long until someone figures out their involvement? Keating had been turning a
blind eye to the Hobgoblin's affairs and helped frame Flash Thompson in return
for tips on mob activities, and Kingsley had been manufacturing weapons for
him. During their argument, Johnston and Varley turn up with a message
that "The Rose wishes to inform you that he's decided to terminate our
cooperative working relationship." Kingsley is shot in the arm, and Keating
makes an impromptu exit out of the window. (In the light of the Hobgoblin
Lives mini-series, it is revealed that Kingsley in this scene was actually
Roderick's brother Daniel.)

WEB Page 9: Pete arrives home and is disappointed to find a note from
Felicia to say that she's got bored and gone out to play.

WEB Page 10-11
(panel 1): Greenwich Village. Richard Fisk receives a call from Varley
about Keating's escape. He tells him and Johnston to meet him at his penthouse
in an hour. Alfredo goes off to search out the Hobgoblin's old hideaways to
make sure there's no proof there to tie them in with the Hobgoblin's
activities.

WEB Page 11 (panels 2-4): Peter is "sitting on the dock of the bay",
saddened as he has no one he feels he can talk to or confide in. A mysterious
figure in the shadows notices him: "Well, well... There he is..."

ASM Pages 15-17 / WEB Pages 11(panel 5)-13(panel 5): The Rose arrives at
his HQ to meet Johnston and Varley. Find them he does, but they're a little on
the dead side. The Rose doesn't display any emotion one way or another, and
starts trimming his rose-bushes. The new Hobgoblin then shows up with the
intention of killing Fisk. However, when the Rose tells about him about his
father's intension of giving his file over to Spider-Man, Hobgoblin lets him
live. He blasts his way through the wall as he flies out, knocking Fisk to the
floor.

WEB Page 13 (panel 6): The Rose is shocked after the explosion and
determines that he's going to "burn this stupid mask! The Rose is
dead!"

WEB Page 14: Alfredo breaks into one of the old Hobgoblin
hideouts in such a suave manner that he says he's "in like Flint". (In Like
Flint was a Bond-esque spoof from the 60s about a female secret society
planning to take over the world.) Alfredo then uses his technical know-how to
disable the computer system intended to eliminate any unwanted visitors.

WEB Pages 15-18: Back at the dock, the figure who's spotted Pete makes
himself known. It's none other Wolverine. As they talk, a gang of street punks
attempt to rob the super-powered duo. Naturally, a fight breaks out.
Wolverine's clearly enjoying himself, while Pete's pulling his punches so none
of them get seriously hurt. As the gang run off, Wolverine runs after them and
invites Peter to join him. Meanwhile, back at the Goblin hideout, as soon as
Alfredo is fully satisfied there's nothing there to incriminate Richard, the
new Hobgoblin appears and attempts to kill him.

WEB Pages 19-21: Alfredo dodges all the goblin-blasts and makes his
escape in his Porsche. Meanwhile Spidey and Wolvie (both of them now in
costume) take care of the street gang. Cut back to Alfredo as he drives away
from his pursuer just as the Rose calls him to see how he's doing. Alfredo
screams "There's a homicidal maniac lobbing grenades at my new Porsche, and you
wanna know how I'm doing?!" We then see the Arranger driving up to Spidey to
tell him that the Kingpin wants to meet him. Alfredo's Porsche then races past
with the Hobgoblin in pursuit.

WEB Pages 22-23: One of the goblin-grenades connects with the car and it
flies off the pier into the water below. The Rose is mortified when he hears
these sounds over the phone as he is convinced that Alfredo's just been killed.
In actual fact, Spidey has leapt into the water and rescued him, but the Rose
runs off into the night overwhelmed by guilt. (As shown in
Web of Spider-Man #30, he goes straight to
a Catholic church and confesses all his sins to a priest.)

ASM Pages 18-19: Spidey turns up at the Kingpin's office and he is given
the file to read. While Fisk disposes of one of the Rose's spies, Spidey learns
the horrifying truth...

ASM Pages 20-24: We see Ned back in the Berlin hotel room changing into
his Hobgoblin gear, when four of the Foreigner's men break in. A battle
follows, during which one of them breaks Ned's arm, and ends with Ned being
strangled to death with a chord. Back in the Kingpin's office, Fisk tells
Spidey that this new Hobgoblin is Jason Macendale.

ASM Pages 25-26: Spidey swings off to pay the Foreigner a little visit.
This is why the Kingpin wanted Spider-Man to see the file - to teach the
Foreigner a little lesson in humility. Macendale in full Hobgoblin regalia
shows up, demanding the file. When Fisk says that Spidey has it, Hobbie
threatens to kill him - but the fifty rifles aimed straight at him convince him
otherwise.

ASM Page 27: Flash sees Spidey swinging away, and since he's been unable
to give himself up to the police, he wants to give Spidey a try.

ASM Pages
28-30: Spidey gets to the Foreigner's building. There's no sign of him
there, but the Hobgoblin shows up. And guess what - they fight!

ASM Pages 31-35: Hobgoblin takes the fight outside. Flash is watching
the battle, and catches one the goblin's grenades which he throws back at
Hobbie. The blast knocks Flash to the ground. Hobgoblin realizes that all the
fight's been taken out of him so he flies off.

ASM Page 37: Flash hasn't give up. While we see him recovering nicely in
hospital, the DA turn up telling him they're dropping all charges against
him.

ASM Page 38: Back at his HQ, the Kingpin is enjoying another game
of chess with the Foreigner. When the Foreigner takes the elevator down, it is
clear that Fisk wishes to teach him another lesson. The elevator explodes, and
in true comic book fashion, all is does to the Foreigner is singe his suit and
ruffle his hair. What exactly is this guy made of?

ASM Pages 39-40: In Pete's apartment, Pete's spirits are raised when he
sees that Felicia's made him three new costumes to replace the one that was
destroyed in his battle with the Hobgoblin. He'd been planning to give up being
Spider-Man once all the Hobgoblin business had been resolved. But now he's
realized that he can't give up being Spidey any more than he can give up
breathing. It's who he is. So he swings off into the night once more... as the
Amazing Spider-Man. Who'd have thunk it?

General Comments

I don't think there's a Spidey fan in the world who wasn't disappointed by
ASM #289 when it first came out.

I had three major problems with Ned being the Hobgoblin:

Problem Number One: Far too obvious. After four years of waiting, the
Hobgoblin was revealed to be the person who everyone thought it was all along.
Check out any letter page in ASM during this storyline, and you'll see
most people had it pegged as Ned Leeds. Call me old-fashioned but I believe
that a mystery is supposed to be... well... mysterious, not so screamingly
obvious that it would take a lobotomized goat not to figure it out.

Problem Number Two: He was killed far too easily. The Hobgoblin was at
least as strong as Spidey, but is finished off by four men who have no super-
powers. It didn't make sense. (I realize that Hobgoblin Lives solved
this, but that wasn't until ten years later. At the time, this was intended to
be the conclusion.)

Problem Number Three: What annoyed me most of all is why didn't they
make more of the mystery once Ned died. If they let the Spidey titles carry on
with this for a few months, the mystery could've been taken to a whole new
level. Ned dies in Spider-Man versus Wolverine, so he's out of the
running list of suspects. The Hobgoblin's still around for about another 6
issues. Then it's revealed that it was Ned - now that's a conclusion!

All this aside, I have to say that it's a really well written issue. Pete's
guilt over the death of Ned is explored very well, and the fight scenes with
the new Hobgoblin are great. It's also good to see Flash Thompson bounce back
and save the day after being a victim for so long. Web #29 also has some
great moments in it: Kingsley gets shot, the Rose is finished, Spidey meets
Wolverine again, and there's a great sequence with Alfredo trying to dodge the
Hobgoblin. The street punks could've done with being a bit more threatening
though, like they were on the cover. Click on the WEB cover above to
enlarge it and check out the green guy on the left - that's a scary
street punk.

When you read the WEB issue with ASM, it really
enhances the storyline, but it does not stand up on its own as a story any more
than the bonus features on a DVD stand up as a film. But it does make the ride
a lot more enjoyable.

Overall Rating

3 webs. The ASM issue would get two and a half webs on its own, but the
extra scenes in WEBtake it a notch higher. Overall a well-told story,
but after four years of build-up we deserved a conclusion a little more
satisfying.

Footnote

Wolverine's next appearance in a Spidey comic is in a dream sequence with
pretty much the rest of the Marvel Universe in
Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21.
But the next time the two of them actually meet is in a three-parter in
Marvel Comics Presents #48-50, where they team-up to free a captured
mutant girl and her father.